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Saturday, October 31, 2015

#99: When Will You Stop Playing Undertale?

(Spoiler Alert: This
article discusses important plot points and twists in Undertale.)

I've begun to
notice a new trend in video games, especially in RPGs. The current
generation of game designers grew up on the games that built the
genre, like Final Fantasy and Ultima. When they entered the industry,
they took with them an appreciation and understanding of the tropes
created and used by these RPGs. Manifesting itself within their
works, this understanding allows them to make games that are more
self-aware. Some games are content to just lampshade and acknowledge
those very tropes, laughing them off as an in-joke between the
designers and the players. Others exist to show the potential
implications behind them; to demonstrate the potential horrors of a
world where those tropes we take for granted in games are reality.
Undertale is one such game, and it has a damning, if not subtle,
message to deliver to its player base.

Created by Toby
Fox, Undertale is an RPG, inspired by the likes of Earthbound. What
separates it from other small-budget, independently-developed RPGs is
that it bills itself as a “friendly” game. Though the player
encounters random enemies while exploring, they never have to kill
any one of them. This isn't necessary new, as Shin Megami Tensei has
frequently allowed players to converse with and recruit demons.
However, Undertale takes this basic concept to a logical extreme.
Every enemy, even the bosses, can be dealt with without dealing a
lethal blow. This is the way in which Undertale helps set the stage
for its moral lessons.

In most RPGs,
players fight and kill hundreds, if not thousands, of creatures over
the course of the game, with little regard for their lives. To the
players, and to the protagonists, they are nothing more than speed
bumps in the road to their objective. Undertale asks what kind of
person is this protagonist, and what kind of effect would that person
have on those around him. If the player chooses to murder every enemy
they encounter, they'll begin to see the effects quickly. Towns and
areas will become depopulated, devoid of life. Shopkeepers will
abandon their stores and their stock before the protagonist arrives
in an effort to escape the carnage with their lives intact. City
guards and brave heroes will attempt to stop them in their tracks.

In other words, the
player who murders every enemy they encounter, who acts like any
other RPG protagonist, is a complete genocidal-maniac. To rack up
such a high kill count and slaughter so many, they would have to be.
By implication, Undertale is saying that this would be true of the
lead protagonists of most RPGs and the company those “heroes”
keep. Simply by adventuring and fighting against all these creatures,
they are complicit in mass homicide. Even if the opponents aren't
sapient, the kind of damage that would ensue on the ecosystem would
make life nearly unsustainable. Undertale claims that although we see
them as heroes from our viewpoint, the damage they do would only make
a bad situation worse. As players, we take for granted that we are in
the right, or at least trying to do good. Undertale questions the
wisdom of saying that we are morally correct just because we are
playing as the protagonist.

But that is not the
only RPG mechanic Undertale challenges by exploring its implications.
The idea of replaying games with multiple endings, and seeing “all
that a game has to offer” also comes into close scrutiny. At any
point before beating the game, the player is allowed to start over
from the beginning. However, characters in the story will remember
and comment on what choices they made in their previous playthrough.
Most will discover this in the same way I did. The first boss in the
game is your maternal figure, Toriel, who guides you and protects you
at the start. In my first run, I had not realized that the trick to
saving her is to constantly use the Spare option until she gives up,
and my ignorance killed her. Regretting my actions, I consulted the
wiki and learned how to keep her from dying. I reset my playthrough
and used the non-lethal method to win the boss fight. Immediately
afterward, the next character I spoke to mocked me for “growing a
conscience” and redoing that section of the game to spare her. For
going back to see the alternate outcome, I was chastised by the very
game I was playing.

Continuing along
this theme, should the player get the Pacifist ending, for never
killing a single thing and completing all the prerequisite side
content, they are given the option to perform a True Reset,
essentially erasing not only the current save, but any record that
previous runs ever occurred, returning the game to a
factory-standard. When the player launches the game after unlocking
this option, one character appears on screen begging them not to use
it. By doing so, they claim that the player would be erasing the
happy endings that the cast had earned throughout the game, a fate
more cruel than anything else that could happen to them.

In the Genocide run
of the game, the player has a conversation with the only other major
villain aside from themselves. During this discussion, this person
praises the player for their willingness to give in to their
murderous instincts and show no mercy. Then, something strange
happens. He begins to talk about the people who “want to go through
with this, but don't have the guts to do it themselves.” Taunting
them, he claims that there are “Probably watching a video of this
right now.” (A fact that I learned, fittingly enough, by watching
someone else's Let's Play of a Genocide run.)

All of this boils
down to Undertale's one, overarching message: Even though the content
exists in the game's files, it isn’t something the audience
necessarily needs to see. The game is blatant in the way that it
encourages its players to save everyone and avoiding making even a
single kill. That said, the option to ignore its warnings and embark
on a bloody campaign exists. It's there, but it is something that
players absolutely have to experience this content? Do they have to
sacrifice the good times they had with the friends they made along
the way in the service of seeing every bit of content on offer? Are
all those lives the player took worth the Genocide ending? And if
they aren't, is it even worth the time it takes to look up a YouTube
video showing the differences? Undertale ponders these questions and
answers with a definitive “no”. All these choices exist, but in
reality the game considers the first playthrough to be the only thing
worth the player’s time. Anything else being needless fluff padding
out your time with it.

Though Undertale
lacks a subtlety regarding the way it challenges these tropes used in
the vast majority of RPG game design, there is no denying that is
does challenge them. Lately, there have been more and more games that
deconstruct and analyze their own medium. Given that the generation
that grew up on gaming has finally matured to the point where it can
enter the industry proper, I expect to see more of these
deconstructions as time goes on. Like Undertale, their creators have
something to say about the games they played growing up, and now they
have the means and opportunity to express those thoughts.